Met Several Victims Over the Internet and Through Video Game Systems

Greenbelt, Maryland – Clarence Henry Andrews, age 28, of Silver Spring, Maryland, pleaded guilty late on January 27, 2017, to production of child pornography. Andrews is a registered sex offender as a result of a 2010 conviction in Prince George’s County Circuit Court for a fourth degree sex offense and second degree assault, in connection with his abuse of a nine-year-old boy in the bathroom of a Laurel, Maryland, church.

The guilty plea was announced by United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein; Special Agent in Charge Gordon B. Johnson of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Baltimore Field Office; Chief J. Thomas Manger of the Montgomery County Police Department; and Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy.

According to his plea agreement, in March 2015, Andrews communicated with an 11-year-old male residing in Georgia, via a video game system, Skype, FaceTime, text messages, and telephone. During the course of the communications, Andrews promised to provide the victim with Advanced Warfare, a video game, in exchange for sexually explicit images and videos of the victim. At times, Andrews invoked the Bible in order to persuade the victim to produce and share sexually explicit images and videos. Andrews admitted that between approximately 2013 and April 2015, Andrews – using similar means and pattern of conduct – attempted to coerce at least eight additional victims aged 16 and younger to produce images and videos of sexually explicit conduct.

In addition, Andrews admitted that between April 2013 and October 2014, Andrews befriended a family through church, that included an eight-to-nine-year-old female and a seven-to-eight-year-old male, residing in Olney, Maryland. Andrews visited the family’s home on several occasions. On one occasion Andrews took the girl to a downstairs bathroom in the home and gave her cash to pull down her pants, then touched and photographed the child’s buttocks. On other occasions while visiting the family Andrews took the boy to the downstairs bathroom, engaged in sexually explicit conduct and photographed the boy’s buttocks. As part of his federal plea agreement, Andrews has agreed to plead guilty to this conduct in Montgomery County Circuit Court (Case No. 130047C)

Also as part of his plea agreement, Andrews will be required to continue to register as a sex offender in the place where he resides, where he is an employee, and where he is a student, under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA).

Andrews and the government have agreed that if the Court accepts the plea agreement Andrews will be sentenced to between 20 and 30 years in prison, followed by lifetime supervised release. U.S. District Judge Paul W. Grimm has scheduled sentencing for May 12, 2017.

The case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorneys' Offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc. For more information about internet safety education, please visit www.justice.gov/pscand click on the "resources"tab on the left of the page.

United States Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein commended the FBI, Montgomery County Police Department, and Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office for their work in the investigation, and thanked the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the Butts County, Georgia, District Attorney’s Office for their assistance. Mr. Rosenstein thanked Assistant U.S. Attorneys Nicolas A. Mitchell and Menaka Kalaskar, who are prosecuting the federal case.